


in a Renoir way

by unknownbananna



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: (and angst bc it's me and the world is scary), (is that a tag now?), Domestic Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Halt is a supportive dad, quarantine fic, read for warm & soft feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:21:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownbananna/pseuds/unknownbananna
Summary: It started in March of 2020.(Or, the one where Halt and his kids are home together during the pandemic.)
Relationships: Halt O'Carrick & Gilan Davidson & Will Treaty
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	1. march, 2020.

_Viruses, when the lens is right,_   
_change into a bright bouquet._   
_Are such soft forms of pure delight_   
_viruses? When the lens is right,_   
_instead of forms of shapeless blight,_   
_we see them in a Renoir way._   
_Viruses, when the lens is right,_   
_change into a bright bouquet._

_\- "First Photos of Flu Virus", Harold Witt_

* * *

“That’s a nice poem,” Halt said from his armchair, where he sat with a book across his lap. The late March nights were still cold, so they’d lit an evening fire in the small living room fireplace; its shadows danced on the walls when Halt looked up at them. Will shrugged and set his own book on the couch beside him.

“I guess.”

Halt eyed his son keenly. He and Will had only counted each other family for five years, but Halt still knew him better than most. He knew the slump of Will’s shoulders, the way his eyes fixed on the rug, the way he twisted his fingers in his lap. Will was generally cheerful, but he was also empathetic and sensitive to others. It was no small wonder recent events had left him feeling shaken. “You like poetry,” Halt said instead of commenting on Will’s body language. “What made you want to read that one just now?”

Will shrugged again. “I guess it’s just—wrong. Isn’t it? There’s nothing good about this.” He made a vague encompassing gesture with his right hand. “There’s no—there’s no other way to see it than for what it is.”

Halt hummed as he thought. It was very like Will indeed: Not unwilling to talk about the things that troubled him, but needing a little push to get him moving. Or perhaps a reminder that someone was willing to listen. “Well,” Halt said, “it’s true that a lot of people are suffering right now, and that most things are uncertain. A lot of people have died. The world  _ is  _ a dark place.” He paused, noticing the way Will’s eyes sloped further downward, so that Halt could barely see them. “Do you think that means there aren’t good things in it?”

Will bit his lip. “No,” he said reluctantly. “I guess there’s good stuff. It just feels...wrong...to look at it. People are dying. It feels—I don’t know. Rude? Dishonoring? Like there’s more important things to focus on. And everything’s gone to hell, anyway.”

“And will go further and faster still,” Halt said with the gentleness that only comes from years and years of living. “I doubt the poem means that if we look at the pandemic through ‘a different lens’”—he held up finger quotes—“it’ll suddenly be a beautiful thing. It’s a terrible thing. But if you were responsible for bearing all the sorrows in the world, Will, you would never be able to stand, much less step forward.”

“Well, I know that,” Will muttered petulantly, and Halt raised an eyebrow. 

“Do you really?” He didn’t pause for an answer. “Will, this world  _ is _ a dark place. The suffering of others matters to you, and that’s good because it  _ should _ matter. It’s good for us to mourn that. But.” Halt gave his son a rare smile. “The lilacs in the garden will bloom in May. So will the daisies after them. And when they do, we’ll go out and look at them, for a long time, because they will be beautiful. And that matters, too.”

Will’s eyes at last traveled upwards to meet Halt’s. They were questioning, but still kind and sincere, and everything Halt loved about his son. “Does it, though? In the middle of everything?”

A corner of Halt’s lip turned upward. “When have I ever told you something I don’t mean?”

Will snorted. “Not ever,” he said with some feeling. It was true. Halt’s parenting style wasn’t always soft and cozy, and he wasn’t one to mince words. But he took his promises seriously. And whatever anyone else might think, Halt and Will were close. They’d pushed through the worst of the past five years together. Halt saw no reason that would stop now, no matter what came next.

“Don’t stop caring about all the hurt in the world, Will,” he told his son gently. “Don’t live like it doesn’t exist. But when something good comes by, don’t push it away just because there’s suffering too. That’s no way to live.”

“You think something good might come out of this?” 

Halt shrugged. “Good things often come out of bad things. That doesn’t make the bad things good. You know that.” Will  _ did  _ know that, better than most.

Will sighed and flopped back onto the couch cushion. He still seemed burdened, but Halt noticed with pleasure that he was no longer curled in on himself. “So… If something good happens, in the middle of all this...this tragedy?”

Halt smiled. He thought of Gilan upstairs, and the cat who was no doubt with him, and of how glad he was to have both his boys home with him even in such circumstances. Things were hard, and would probably grow harder still—but oh, the lilacs  _ would _ be beautiful in May.

Out loud, he said, “Then let it come.” 

* * *

“Covid doesn’t really look like a bouquet, anyway,” Will said after less than five minutes of silence. Halt looked up from his book and raised an eyebrow at his son, who was still flopped over backward on the couch and staring at the ceiling.

“Oh?”

“Nah. It’s pretty gross looking, even under a microscope.”

“Well.” Halt turned the page. “I’m sure the scientific community will welcome your input.”

Will rolled his eyes. “Ha, ha. Just noticing, is all.”

Halt went back to his reading, only to be interrupted forty-five seconds later by Will clearing his throat. “Yes, Will?” he asked without looking up.

He could almost hear the smile in Will’s voice when he spoke. “Halt? It is good to be home. Even in the midst of everything.”

Halt looked up with a warm smile on his face, the kind he only ever gave to family. “Yes. So it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a paper due on Saturday, so of course I started a new project. (The headcanons I originally put on tumblr, plus a few more, are over in chapter 2.)
> 
> I'm probably going to update this sporadically as I have ideas and want to write. If there are any quarantine moments you'd particularly like to see written, feel free to leave them in a comment! I can't make promises but will certainly try :) Also, important to clarify: I don't want to say that if we view the virus in a different way, it'll suddenly be a good or a beautiful thing. I've just loved that poem for a long time, and it's been on my mind a lot the past few months as I've kind of been working through the same thoughts Will's had. Trying to reconcile the good things that have happened in my life over the past few months with all the suffering that's happened, too. 
> 
> Halt's probably OOC because he sounds like my mother. (This is for a very good reason: Everything he's said to Will has been something my mother's said to me.) That being said, I wrote this pretty quickly and would gratefully welcome comments on things like characterization/flow that you think would make this read better. Thank you for reading!


	2. the tumblr headcanons (plus some). april, 2020.

The house is a small one—far from the city, though not far enough as to make access inconvenient, at the end of a winding road surrounded by trees. Halt chose it long ago because it made him feel like he lived far away in a forest by himself. (Of course, that was before Pauline, and long before the boys. And things are better now.)  
  
Halt works from home. With their proximity to the city, even as far out as they are, the virus is certainly worrying, and Halt isn’t in the age bracket that warrants concern but he’s not as young as he used to be. He works for the government, so they sent him home early. Online work isn’t his favorite. He loves his job for the field work (he’s something of a high-ranking detective, but he’s not supposed to talk about it much. He tries not to at home, anyway). But there are always reports to catch up on, and things could be much worse. He has a lot to be grateful for. After all, they’re all home and safe.  
  
They, because Halt doesn’t live alone.  
  
Gilan isn’t Halt’s son but he might as well be, with how often he’s around. His parents live several states away and he has a crummy city apartment, but he stays at Halt’s house fairly often. (He pretends it’s to annoy Halt and not because he gets lonely on his own, and Halt in turn pretends Gilan’s presence annoys rather than relieves him.) So when the stay-at-home order hit, Gilan had two homes to choose from. Halt talked him into packing a bag staying at his so he wouldn’t need to be alone. So Gilan also works from home: He and Halt set up in the living room, with their work bags and files and laptops, and keep each other quiet company. They’re both pretty busy with online work, but it’s not so bad when there’s another person to work next to (and to share all the frustrations of online adaptation with).  
  
Will, Halt’s adopted son of almost five years now, is home as well. From college—he’s a sophomore and it’s busy season, so he spends a lot of his time working. (He’s a diligent student. Gilan teases him about it fairly often, but he also admires it. For his part, Will finds it easy to be hardworking when he’s studying something he loves.) He takes over the dining room during the days, attending lectures on his laptop with earbuds in and studying afterward. His homework spreads out everywhere. He spends a lot of time in group zoom calls with his college friends, laughing and cracking jokes that seem totally nonsensical to the two older men but that make Will’s friends laugh in blue light on the screen.

(And, of course, there's the cat. Her name is Cat. She is seven years old and very fluffy and an absolute lovebug, and brings joy to their house even when they're scooping her disobedient self off the kitchen counter for the fifth time since dinner started.)  
  
Gilan and Will get on like a house on fire. Gilan’s very much come to see Will as a younger brother over the years, and Will very similarly looks up to Gilan. Gilan was there for Will when he abruptly came into Halt’s life five years ago—while he was struggling, when he was at his worst. This is the most time they’ve spent together in a long while. So they make the most of it: They play a lot of board games and drink a lot of coffee together, and Gilan uses a lot of memes out of context because he knows it’ll drive Will crazy. Halt pretends to tolerate their antics, but truthfully it’s a joy to have them both together under his roof.  
  
The three of them are pretty scattered during the day but eat dinner together every night, and often cook together, too. Jenny sent them several different bread recipes and they’ve been learning to bake bread. They make stew and soup and big pasta dishes to go with it. It’s more calming than Halt thought it would be—though he would deny it if asked, it gives him a warm, contented feeling. Like the three of them are a real family.  
  
Will’s convinced Gilan and Halt to rewatch _Brooklyn 99._ Will at this point has realized that as The Youngest he has the power to convince Gilan and Halt to do quite a lot of things, and he takes full advantage of it during quarantine. They’ve seen a lot of tik toks over the past two weeks. Halt even caught himself on the brink of quoting along with one the other day. (Thankfully, he stopped himself in time. Gilan never would have let him live it down.)  
  
Gilan posts way too much on instagram. He’s not bad at photography, either. Most pictures on his story are of Halt and Will—of Halt working or Will reading (he’s in a world lit class). He also posts a lot of the food they make together, always careful to tag Jenny and give her credit for the recipes. She usually responds with a rating of the photo. (Will isn’t sure what’s going on there—and yeah, it’s kinda weird that his older almost-brother is almost-flirting with his childhood best friend—but he thinks he probably wouldn’t be upset if they started hanging out more after everything blows over.)  
  
Halt and Pauline facetime every day for an hour and nobody comments on it. Partly because neither wants to antagonize Halt while they’re stuck under the same roof for goodness knows how long, but partly because they’re thrilled with it. Both boys know it’s only a matter of time before they’re engaged. They love Pauline, and they love how happy she makes Halt. (She’s been texting Gilan and Will to check in on them as well. Gilan ends his texts to her with a smiley face, and Will sends her about 80 different colored heart emojis per day.)  
  
It’s not that they don’t get tired of each other. They’re all pretty stressed out most of the time. None of them do well cooped up inside; they’re all normally active and used to days full of movement. That’s even without the constant stress of living through such uncertainty. And yes, they get frustrated and lose their tempers. They try to spend time alone. Will spends a lot of time holed up in his room, video chatting with friends or studying or playing the guitar Halt bought him for Christmas four years ago. (Credit where it’s due, he’s gotten pretty good.) Gilan goes out on long, solitary runs. Halt reads by himself in the living room. But even when they get frustrated, they all make an effort. And if one says something he doesn’t mean, they’re quick to apologize and get on with life. “No use holding grudges during a stay-at-home order,” Halt reminds them crisply, and Will and Gilan know he’s right. 

But the thing is that none of them are having an easy time. They all feel so _powerless_ . All three of them are acting kinds of people—it’s one of the reasons they chose the occupations they did. They enjoy their work because they can make a difference in the world. “Be the good”, and all that. But these days it seems that all there is to do is sit and watch numbers go up on the news. Oh, they do the things they’re supposed to: They wear masks outside, they take precautions, they’ve donated what they’re able to, and Gilan is always out picking up groceries for the elderly couple who lives ten minutes away. The virus, though, is something they have to sit and wait out. Halt hates twiddling his thumbs. But he’s always taught patience, so he tries to model it here. But it’s not easy.  
  
Will in particular is having a difficult time with things. He’s always been anxious, more since the bad stuff he went through when he was a teenager, and the uncertainty gets to him. He won’t say it out loud but he’s worried about Halt. He doesn’t know anyone tougher or healthier, but the weight and worry of it all presses down on him when he’s not distracted by schoolwork or friends. Halt knows, though, because Halt knows Will. He’s steady and reassuring. He makes sure to ruffle Will’s hair or smile at him or sling an arm over his shoulders while they’re watching a movie on the couch, and it makes things better.  
  
During the week, they’re all busy. (Will, so it seems, is busy all the time—if this is what he’s like at home, Halt wonders what he’s like when he’s buzzing around campus from this to that. He wonders if his son ever sleeps.) But they set weekend nights aside. They made a long list of movies they want to watch, and they take turns picking a movie a night. Gilan and Will convinced Halt (via lots of excessive begging and pleading) to buy a whole ton of popcorn so that it “feels more real”. Favorite blankets are all folded near the couches. One Saturday they marathon _Star Wars_ —the original six—and Will and Gilan build a blanket fort in front of the TV.  
  
Nighttime feels slower while they’re quarantined at home. Halt and Gilan both head to bed a little before midnight. Will stays up late studying—Halt wishes he wouldn’t, but he knows his son has exams coming and papers due, and he’s an adult anyway so he can make his own decisions—but even so, Will always makes sure to say goodnight to Halt and Gilan before they turn in to their own rooms. (He’s sweet that way and he always has been. He’s never been one to take having family for granted.)  
  
Even with the long days and growing numbers on the news, Halt thinks there’s something comforting about going to sleep every night in his own bed, knowing that Will’s finishing readings at his desk and Gilan’s typing his midnight texts in the guest room. Home and safe. Where they should be. Even if that’s all the comfort they have right now, it’s something solid to hold on to.  
  
They have a lot to be thankful for. The world is frightening and full of uncertainty, but here at least they’re together. For now, that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes! One, I know that this reads very much like it happens in the U.S. I also know that Araluen is technically supposed to be the England equivalent. I'm American, so sadly that's just kind of how it's gonna be. Later on it might just be blatantly American since that's where I live and that's kind of hard to forget atm (yikes), but we'll see. 
> 
> Two, Halt's cat came from the RA discord server. I am currently quarantining (I live in a city so yeah, still not going outside much) with two cats and I want to share with everyone else the joy they bring me.
> 
> Three, very importantly: I know I said much the same thing on tumblr, but I really don't want to turn anything that's happening right now into something to make light of. 2020 has sucked and people are truly suffering. I certainly don't want to minimize that. That said, it's calming for me to write this; I hope it's also calming to read :)


End file.
